


Prequel to a Wake

by The Stephanois (ballantine)



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Organized Crime, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 08:32:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13120011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/The%20Stephanois
Summary: The day Odin dies, Thor puts his fist through a wall. He first tried to put it through Loki, but his brother had ducked.





	Prequel to a Wake

**Author's Note:**

> Is there such a things as a fic that _pretends_ to have a plot?

**I.**

The day Odin dies, Thor puts his fist through a wall. He first tried to put it through Loki, but his brother had ducked.

“You did this,” he says, speaking lowly at the crumbled plaster rather than looking around. It's hard to get the words out, hard to see clearly – the old rage is building up and the dam that held it back for years is finally cracking.

“Well – no,” Loki says from behind him. “You may think I'm capable of working magic, but I assure you, giving him cancer is somewhat beyond my abilities.”

“You concealed his illness from me.”

How long, he wonders. How long had his father lay dying while Thor traveled abroad, blissfully unaware of all he was losing back home.

Loki is silent for a moment. Then: “Our control has grown precarious as of late. If the other families knew the Allfather was dying – well. We couldn't have anyone knowing.”

“Not even his son?” Thor finally turns to look at him, shoulders bunching and fists balled.

A thin smile flickers over his face. “What would you have done if you'd known? Rushed home, I suppose?”

“Yes,” he snarls.

“As good a confirmation to the rumors as any,” he says, as if that was the only thing of importance, not fixing a relationship before it's too late, not closure and certainly not Thor's own feelings on the matter.

All at once, the grief crests again and he is submerged. He steps back and gropes for a chair in which to sit.

“Thor, it's not as if you could have done anything.” Loki clears his throat and tugs on the cuffs of his dark shirt, gaze slipping off to the side. On any other face, it might have looked like regret. “I called you when it was clear he was going.”

“Do you expect gratitude from me?” The words come out rough, but the anger is leeching away, for now if not for good.

Without it, Thor shivers a little. It's cold here. He arrived in the city ill-prepared for December weather, but hadn't wanted to delay seeing his father for the length of time it would have taken to procure proper clothing.

“I was thinking more along the lines of a drink, actually,” Loki says.

 

**II.**

If anyone could see them now, Loki knows, their eyes would only register a series of half-truths and misconceptions. And on this particular day, with his adopted father's body growing cold in a parlor across town, that genuinely bothers him.

Half-truth: the heir to the Aesir sits in a bar with his father's consigliere. No one looks at them and sees two brothers.

They don't speak at first. Thor has sunk into a state not unlike shock. Loki glances at his watch and places a wager with himself. Three drinks or one hour before he snaps again.

The fool hadn't even had a jacket with him. Loki had made him wait in the foyer and went into his private rooms to fetch the thick sweater that lurked at the far edge of his wardrobe. It belonged to Thor once, but has long since lost his scent.

Loki eyes the way the dark red knit hugs his broad arms and makes a mental note to fetch it back from him after tonight.

Half-truth: Loki did not miss Thor during his absence.

To be sure, there were many benefits to it; Loki's influence within the family has an easier path when he doesn't spend half his time calculating contingencies for the inevitable hotheaded blunder. Since Thor went on his first extended trip, their business has flourished, costly gang skirmishes have all but stopped, and the Aesir have become the newest patrons to the local arts scene.

He's enjoyed himself, but that doesn't mean he's been content. What true joy is there in conducting an orchestra when the only audience he ever valued is not there to witness it?

Loki orders two shots of mid-shelf whiskey, something with a deliberate after burn to pay dues to the miserable occasion. He puts one in Thor's slow-to-react hand and waits for him to meet his eyes. When he does, he lifts his own glass and says:

“To Odin.”

Thor's golden throat works for a moment, but in the end he tips his glass and says, with the same clear lack of intent that has always meant the world to Loki, “To our father.”

They drink.

Thor's eyebrows are raised as he puts the glass back down on the table. “Is the family doing so poorly that we can't avoid decent liquor?”

The whiskey wasn't so bad that Loki wouldn't lick the remains of it from his mouth. “Criticizing my taste? This from the one who used to down domestic lagers by the keg?”

“I've grown past that,” Thor says. He means nothing by it, but Loki looks at him thoughtfully and thinks: yes, you have. And when did that happen?

Misconception: Thor has stayed away out of some petulant disinclination to honor his responsibilities.

Thor's capacity for both confounding kindness and breathtaking violence is well-documented; Loki has kept an idle eye on all the dead bodies and grateful strangers across the world as if they were installments in a grand work of performance art. He's under no illusion that Thor's the same boy who first stormed off years ago, but he also has no real idea what Thor plans to do with the family business. He just knows he would be an entirely different sort of leader than Odin.

“Will you stay?” he asks him, and there's both dread and anticipation in the question.

All his careful planning, and here he is, still begging after his big brother's attention.

“I'd always planned on returning,” Thor says. “I just thought there would be more time.” He shifts on his stool and motions at the bartender for another drink. When he looks back to Loki, the banked anger in his eyes could almost be mistaken for warmth. “It's just the two of us now. We're all that's left.”

 _You're_ all that's left, Loki thinks. He'd never been formally adopted by Odin and Frigga, and the precise details of his position within the family floated as needed for the business. But of course none of that ever mattered to Thor.

They watch each other like that for a long while, and perhaps Loki alone is aware of a rising sense of danger in the room. It hasn't been an hour, but that _is_ Thor's third drink.

A burst of noise heralds a group of young men entering the bar. They are boasting loudly of a job they just pulled across town, right under the noses of the Aesir. They are Vanir boys. Loki knows this with certainty because he chose to take Thor to a bar in Vanir territory.

Misconception: Loki is in any way interested in reigning in Thor's violent impulses.

The two of them have always been a volatile mix. One might even say they bring out the worst in each other, but only if one disapproved of cruel tricks or bloodshed. As it happens, neither Thor nor he do.

Loki watches Thor's eyes darken as he glances across the room at the group. He smiles and nudges the third drink towards him.

“Drink up, brother.”

 

 

**III.**

They're barely succeeding in propping one another up by the time they stumble up the steps to the old house. When Loki unlocks the door to his personal rooms, it's more of a controlled fall than an entrance.

Thor is gliding along on liquor and violence, blood on his knuckles and a mad grin pulling at the bruises he can feel on his face. When Loki tries to dump him on the bed and leave, he catches his wrist in a bruising grip and pulls him along.

They land in a graceless sprawl sideways across the mattress, with Loki on top.

His expression is pinched in displeasure at the indignity of the position, but the expression falters and transforms as Thor moves his thigh so it's more precisely aligned against his half-hard cock.

His hair hangs between them in a dark curtain that is begging to be pulled aside. Thor remembers when he first grew it long to the general disapproval of the family. It was as if he was saying, _I'll be your pet lawyer and play respectable, but don't let anyone doubt where I come from._

“You're so predictable,” Loki says, but he sounds more pleased than anything.

“As predictable as you're transparent,” Thor agrees. He shifts his grip on Loki's wrists so he can pull him closer. “Or was that field trip for drinks and a brawl not meant to remind me of the old days?”

“I thought you could do with the distraction.” His voice has gone a little thready, and his eyes are glittering in the dim light of the bedroom.

They haven't done this in years, not since Odin sent Loki to law school and began grooming Thor in earnest for the bloody side of the business. Thinking of his father makes something dark in him hurt and want to hurt in turn. There's love and resentment and pride all thrumming through his veins with no where to go, not anymore, and it's all too big to confront. So Thor focuses on the one thing he has left.

With a neat flex of muscle, he rolls them and traps Loki's lithe body against the mattress. Thor grins down at him brightly.

Loki's dark shirt has come untucked and is rucked up around his ribs. Thor reaches between them now to palm the silky stretch of pale skin at his hip. A possessive thrill runs through him when the other man presses into his touch.

He's always liked the look of dishevelment on his brother. And how he was the only one who ever got to see it.

He bends and drags his teeth along that perfectly clean-shaven jaw, hearing with no small amount of triumph as Loki's breathing stutters. He grinds down, the weight of his own hardness surely unmistakable, and in response Loki's clever hands quickly come up as if to prevent him from pulling away.

As if he would. As if he could. Thor hums out his pleasure and nuzzles his neck. The skin there is velvety soft and smells utterly intoxicating.

“Thor, how drunk are you?” Loki asks after a long moment.

“...Thor?”

 

 

**IV.**

Loki wakes up hating his tailor.

His tie has somehow wrapped itself around his shoulder and is almost strangling him, and he never knew worsted wool could twist so painfully at the juncture of his thigh and groin. His left arm is also completely numb, but that's the fault of the oaf snoring on top of him.

Truly, it's a sign of insanity that Loki ever missed him.

He tries to slip out from beneath him, but it's still a futile endeavor. Instead of giving up like last night, he reaches with his free hand and digs with prejudice into the pressure point at the hinge of Thor's jaw. The effect is instantaneous; Thor full-body flinches and rolls off him.

Loki retrieves his useless arm and leaves the bed. He goes into the adjoining bathroom and strips down efficiently, tossing his suit with uncharacteristic indifference into a pile in the corner. He's very carefully not thinking of anything beyond brushing his teeth and having a shower, but then he glances up into the mirror and falters.

He steps closer to the sink and angles his head so he can get a better look at the startling redness that covers one side of his otherwise pale neck. It's warm to the touch, sensitive. A sense memory from the previous night bobs to the surface of his thoughts – the bristles of Thor's beard dragging across the skin as he put his mouth to good use. He watches as the skin around the burn warms to near the same color with the force of his flush before turning away and slapping the shower on.

He turns it to as cold as he can stand; then, after two minutes of being unable to force himself under the punishing spray, he turns the dial to hot and gets on with the shower.

Self-punishment really isn't his forte.

After, he wraps his hips in one of thick towels folded in the bathroom closet and pads back out to the bedroom. He pauses by the bed, looking down at Thor's recumbent body.

Last night was – well, frustrating, of course. Nothing had gone as he planned after the first bar. All his carefully thought-out strategies and goals had been dispersed like so much haze with a broad swipe of Thor's arm and a flash of his wide smile.

He'd meant to get him to talk about the arrangements for the wake, and to tactfully feel around the subject of their family's current business position. Instead, they'd pub-crawled from one brawl to the next, practically fighting their way back into Aesir-controlled streets.

It's been a couple years since Loki was involved in the physical aspect of their business, but the thrill was still there, lying in wait just under his skin. He hadn't expected that.

He thumbs over the first tender knuckle on his right hand.

Thor sighs, rolls onto his front, and settles again. At some point in the night he'd managed to remove his sweater and shirt.

Last night was – well, alcohol and adrenaline, of course. Thor got carried away by that peculiar thrill for feeling alive that Loki has been told often accompanies grief. That is all.

Looking away, he steps back again from the bed –

And is promptly snagged by a very much not-asleep Thor. In short order, he finds himself once more on the mattress and spooned from behind like child's teddy bear.

A nose nudges up into his hair and an accompanying mouth presses to his ear, close and intimate. “You got rid of your clothes,” Thor says, voice barely more than a satisfied rumble. “Good.”

Loki somehow managed to forget that Thor is predisposed to neither hangovers nor sleeping late.

“The suit didn't survive a night being pinned under your massive deadweight,” he says waspishly. He feels his brother's mouth curve against his ear.

“I had jet lag,” says Thor, endlessly amiable. “And then you took me out drinking. I know you think I'm superhuman, Loki, but sometimes you expect too much.”

And then he gives a lazy, full-body stretch. When his body retracts back into a deceptively boneless relaxation, it's snug against Loki from his neck to his knees. Loki's mouth goes dry.

Thor is still wearing his trousers; Loki can feel the hard press of his denim-clad cock against the small of his back. Unbidden, he pictures Thor drawing down the zipper, tossing aside the towel covering Loki, and pressing in just like that, the hot drag of skin achy and unforgettable and leaving a sting that might stay longer than the man himself.

Thor nips his ear to get his attention. When he turns his head, he prompts, “Condoms?”

Right.

“Yes.” Where are they, does he even _have_ – “In the bathroom.”

A huff of cheer in his ear, and then the luxurious warmth of Thor's body disappears from the bed. Loki has barely a moment to toss the towel off to the side and slide between the sheets before he's back.

Thor eyes him for a moment, eyes dark, before his hands go to his belt. Working quickly, he undoes the fastening of his trousers and shoves them down, taking his boxer briefs with them.

“So.” Loki raises himself up on his elbows and casts a deliberately cool eye over him. “That's about how I remember it.”

Thor ruins the moment by tackling him.

He allows himself to be manhandled for a few seconds, playing docile before Thor can remember who he's dealing with. Just as he senses his brother start to draw back, faint confusion lining his face, he twists out from underneath and straddles his waist.

Thor's mouth quirks into a wry smile, and his large hands come up to grip his hips. “Always with the tricks and deception.”

“Are you complaining?”

Loki fights back a shiver; it's cooler on top, away from the heat of Thor's body. It's still early enough in the morning that the thermostat's not set to kick in for another hour. He can feel his nipples start to pebble.

Thor sits up with enviable ease and pulls him in closer on his lap. He reaches down and takes them both in hand. “No complaints from my end.”

He gives a few strokes and they both groan.

Loki lets his head fall forward, his forehead rest on Thor's shoulder so he can watch his hand move over both their cocks. It's a hypnotic sight.

“Loki,” Thor says. There's something taut in his voice, and it makes Loki look up. When he does, Thor meets him with a kiss.

It's soft, almost tentative, and a dizzying contrast to the peremptory hold he has on Loki's cock. It is, Loki realizes with a trickle of surprise, their first kiss in years.

He digs his hands into Thor's hair – the lack of purchase in his newly-shorn locks an irritation thrown aside to return to for later cursing – and deepens the kiss, licking and sucking at his mouth as he's longed to do for an age.

The kiss is a revelation. He has met several versions of his brother since Thor arrived home the day before: the angry and grieving son, the sharp future head of the family, this newly mature and well-travelled man and under all of them, the older brother who once broke a man's jaw for threatening Loki. All these identities, rotating face-out like cards in a deck, somehow meld and become one to him in this kiss.

Loki retrieves one hand from where it's still buried in Thor's hair and subtly reaches behind himself.

“Loki,” Thor breaks the kiss to say. “Are you trying to open yourself up _on the sly_?”

He drags his nose along the line of Thor's stubble and smiles. “Your hands were already occupied.”

“But that's why I have two.” Thor doesn't stop his slow strokes but he reaches with his free hand and without delay presses a finger into him, slotting alongside Loki's own. Loki's breath hitches, his whole body rocking up at the feeling of the intrusion.

It's been a few months, for him. Odin's declining health and trouble with the other families consorted to kill his sex life. That he should be ending the dry spell now with Thor feels painfully right in a way he would never admit aloud.

He kisses him again, hard but brief, and says, “Enough. Fuck me.”

And Thor says only, “Yes.” He takes his hand from their leaking cocks and grabs one of the condoms. Loki shifts restlessly over him, feeling the ache within him and wanting to lean into that sensation with all he has.

And then Thor's pressing in, pulling him down on his cock, and he's somehow bigger than he was even in Loki's pristine memory of those heady teenage years.

“Fuck,” Loki says, “Oh, fuck – _Thor_ – ”

They're both breathing hard, chests slicked with the beginnings of sweat and rising and falling rapidly. He's overwhelmed and full, somehow feeling pinned even though he's the one on top. Then Thor slides in the rest of the way, nudging up against his prostate and eliciting another moan.

“Loki,” Thor pants, “Loki, can I – ”

“Yes, yes,” he says, writhing and desperate and not caring what he's asking for. He can have it, he can have it all –

Thor rolls them again, pinning him down against the mass of pillows. He hasn't even settled before he's thrusting again, hard and perfect.

Loki's own cock has drawn up tight against his stomach, but he dares not touch for worry that he'll come as soon as he does. Instead, he grabs Thor's waist and pushes back, meeting his thrusts at an angle then sends jolts of pleasure sparking through his limbs.

“Loki.”

“Yes,” he says.

“Stay – stay with me. Will you stay with me?”

Loki gulps in air. “What?”

Thor doesn't stop moving, and the drag of his cock is a formidable distraction from the desperation in his voice. “You're always running from me.”

It takes another second for the words to sink in, but when they do, Loki locks his ankles around Thor's hips, bringing his thrusts to a stuttering, startled halt.

He grabs a fistful of Thor's hair and yanks his face down so that Loki can snarl right into his mouth, “You're the one who left, brother. I've always been here.”

Up close, Thor's eyes are storm dark. “Right. _Brother_ ,” he adds with surprising bitterness. And then, despite the iron hold of Loki's legs, he gives another thrust, slow and hard like punctuating a point. “But who left first? From the moment Father sent you to school, you started treating me more like a hated rival than an ally or a friend.”

Loki clenches down, just for the pleasure of seeing Thor come undone a little. In the breathing space he gets for a second after, he says swiftly, “My position in the family had just been made clear to me. What was I supposed to do?”

Thor tips his head down so that his eyes are hidden, his forehead pressed against his shoulder. He breathes in raggedly. His hands wander thoughtlessly down Loki's chest, and for a second it seems almost as if he is seeking reassurance rather than possession.

But he's still talking, low and wretched: “ – _trust_ me? Even if you couldn't trust Father, you should've trusted me.”

 _I do_ , Loki thinks. _That's never been the problem._

They've stopped moving. Thor is still hard and rooted deep within him, but all they can seem to do is breathe hard against each other.

“You haven't called me brother for years,” Thor says abruptly, raising his head to look at him. “Are you aware?”

Perversely, it was something Loki trained himself out of, right around the same time he'd stopped seeking Thor out for sex. (He never claimed to have a healthy perspective on this whole thing.)

“It seemed easier. And then, after a while – I didn't think you wanted this anymore,” Loki says.

In any other situation, both of them would likely freeze in astonishment at the rare slip of honesty. But that would require pausing and thinking so Thor proves himself a master of his own style of wisdom and captures his mouth in a deep, hard kiss instead.

When he breaks away again, he pulls out all the way before slamming back in, and Loki's hands fly up to grip the headboard. He feels flayed, ribs pulled open to expose his soul to Thor, and when he comes it's almost a surprise.

His legs go boneless and fall away from Thor just as his brother buries himself deep and falls apart, his cock shuddering inside him.

They allow that for several minutes, Thor slowly going soft inside him but making no move to pull out.

“You didn't answer my question,” Thor says quietly, after a moment. His face is still turned into the crook of Loki's neck and therefore hidden from his sight.

Perhaps Loki doesn't need to see his face to know what lies there; perhaps he's always known.

He doesn't sigh, and he doesn't attempt to apologize for the past or make promises for the future. He reaches over and lays a hand along the sweat-slicked neck of his brother and tells him, low and loving in the only way he knows how:

“I'm here.”


End file.
